ITF targets revenue generation, SIWES in 2024 – DG Ari
By Kingsley Chukwuka
The Director General of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph Ari, has said in the year under review spanning through 2024, the Fund will focus on revenue generation, Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), as achievable goals.
Ari said the plan falls under nine, thematic areas including, Direct Training Services, Sustainable Funding, Resource Utilization, Special Intervention Programmes, Human Capital Development, Research and Automation of Business Processes.
Speaking on Tuesday in Jos, during a brief ceremony to mark his second term in office, the DG said his new mandate fell under the second phase of the ITF “reviewed vision, strategies for mandate actualization”.
According to him: “The plan which implementation has already commenced and will terminate in 2024, is targeted at rectifying the pitfalls that were observed in the implementation of the first phase, build on the achievements thereof, and directly address emergent challenges of our stakeholders as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
Speaking further he said, “our expectation is that in the next four years, the ITF will further escalate and amplify its activities especially with regards to skills acquisition and empowerment of the youths and indigent segments of the society as well as strengthen the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector through need-based training in view of the vital importance of the sector to national growth and development, especially in the light of the economic diversification agenda of the federal government”.
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Ari who said the ITF has trained over 5,000 people said the Fund will continue to invest in expanding its infrastructure in order to create opportunities and open up services to all Nigerians desirous of acquiring skills.
Our correspondent reports that the DG took its first appointment as the ITF boss on September 26th 2016 and was re-apointed by President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term in July 2020.
